Impact of day care cataract surgery on inpatient services in a tertiary care ophthalmic setup

Abstract

We retrospectively reviewed the admission patterns for one year before and one year after the introduction of day care cataract surgery at our cornea services and noted that the number of cataract surgeries per month improved from year 2003 to 2005 ( P < 0.001), with a higher number of admissions for non-emergency corneal pathology seen in 2005 ( P < 0.001). There was a 69.1% more chance of admission for a corneal pathology patient after the introduction of day care services cataract surgery. Day care cataract surgery decongests non-cataract pathology related inpatient services and is therefore a viable alternative in the developing world.